Best Places In The World To Retire

Mexico City is without doubt on the leading edge of advancing LGBT rights!  Mexico City is its own state, the Distrito Federal (just like Washington DC), and has been enacting laws to protect and support its LGBT community for many years.  Same-sex couples have been able to adopt children and form civil unions in DF for some time - more recently, marriage has become available to same-sex couples as well.  Transgender people have been able to legally change...

Mexico City is without doubt on the leading edge of advancing LGBT rights!  Mexico City is its own state, the Distrito Federal (just like Washington DC), and has been enacting laws to protect and support its LGBT community for many years.  Same-sex couples have been able to adopt children and form civil unions in DF for some time - more recently, marriage has become available to same-sex couples as well.  Transgender people have been able to legally change their gender for about 10 years, and recently an amendment to the law made it possible to change gender without requiring medical documentation or psychological evaluation.  Additionally, the government of DF (Distrito Federal; Mexico City) runs a number of programs to support LGBT communities and promote awareness.  The Zona Rosa neighborhood is perhaps the most famous "gay zone" in the city, and is the hub of the LGBT and LGBT-friendly business and cultural community.  The annual Pride Parade is massive and not to be missed!

 

That said, Mexico remains a conservative country more generally, and the protections that the LGBT community has in DF are not always available in other areas, especially outside of larger cities.  There have been instances in the past few years of same-sex couples being denied the right to marry even in states where it is legal.  The good news is that recently the Supreme Court upheld the rights of same-sex couples by redefining "marriage" to include the possibility of same-sex unions.  In Mexico, as in the rest of the world, attitudes will - and are - changing!

 

(Marchers at the 2009 Gay Pride Parade, Zona Rosa, Mexico City, Mexico, pictured.)

 

 

I am a sea person so I don’t go to lagoons quite often and lagoons here in Belize mostly serve a different purpose.
 
We have many rivers in Belize. Some of them are the Belize River, Mopan River, Monkey River, New River, Macal River, Sibun River, Rio Hondo, Sarstoon River, and Rio Blanco.
 
The Macal River is mostly for river canoeing, which is usually combined with bird watching, wildlife, and flora and fauna tours. The Mopan River is the same as the Macal River...

I am a sea person so I don’t go to lagoons quite often and lagoons here in Belize mostly serve a different purpose.
 
We have many rivers in Belize. Some of them are the Belize River, Mopan River, Monkey River, New River, Macal River, Sibun River, Rio Hondo, Sarstoon River, and Rio Blanco.
 
The Macal River is mostly for river canoeing, which is usually combined with bird watching, wildlife, and flora and fauna tours. The Mopan River is the same as the Macal River but you can also do a lot of tubing and kayaking rather than canoeing there. There are people who go to the Mayan Ruins, then hop in a canoe, go down the river and then go cave tubing. You can do all these on a combination tour. The River Lagoon is a combination tour of wildlife, flora and fauna, and we use that to go to Lamanai, which is a major Mayan ruin in northern Belize.
 
In southern Belize, the rivers are mostly great for kayaking, rafting, and flora and fauna tours. You can also go river tubing on the Rio Blanco. Rio Blanco offers a lot of water activities such as tubing, canoeing, rafting, kayaking, paddle boating, and crocodile spotting.
 
Most of the rivers in Belize are very slow moving shallow rivers. We do have some rapids but most of the rivers are very safe and slow moving. 95% of the rivers in Belize are clean with crystal clear waters so you can go swimming in them without worrying about getting bacteria. I wouldn’t swim in the New River and Rio Hondo. I wouldn’t swim in the Belize River but some locals do it. Mopan River and Macal are both excellent for swimming.
 
If you are in Southern Belize, the Sibun River and Rio Blanco are also good for swimming. The river around our resort, the Black Orchid, is the Belize River, which I do not recommend clients to swim in but as I’ve mentioned some locals do swim in the Belize River. Around 30 minutes away from the Black Orchid, you can get to rivers that are nice, clean, and safe to swim and have fun in.

 

(Tubing through Belize's underground rivers, pictured.)

Is seeing the Panama Canal up close and personal a great experience? Bill Gates thinks so. Last year he brought his wife and family to do the half-day tour to the Miraflores Locks (near Clayton). The Panama Canal Authority even let him push the button to open the locks. Did Mr. Gates think the Canal was worthwhile? Gates wrote on his personal blog how much he enjoyed the trip and how amazing the Canal engineering is. If you are in Panama you owe yourself the pleasure of seeing the...

Is seeing the Panama Canal up close and personal a great experience? Bill Gates thinks so. Last year he brought his wife and family to do the half-day tour to the Miraflores Locks (near Clayton). The Panama Canal Authority even let him push the button to open the locks. Did Mr. Gates think the Canal was worthwhile? Gates wrote on his personal blog how much he enjoyed the trip and how amazing the Canal engineering is. If you are in Panama you owe yourself the pleasure of seeing the Canal.

The history of Portugal is a very broad question, so I will address it just in summary form.
 
500 years ago, Portugal owned half of the world and 500 years later we are just a little small humble country of Europe, which can tell you quite a bit.  We were, 500 years ago, a very important country, responsible for controlling half of the goods produced of half of the world. Spain had the other half. And then came the Dutch, the English; the explorers, and they took over some...

The history of Portugal is a very broad question, so I will address it just in summary form.
 
500 years ago, Portugal owned half of the world and 500 years later we are just a little small humble country of Europe, which can tell you quite a bit.  We were, 500 years ago, a very important country, responsible for controlling half of the goods produced of half of the world. Spain had the other half. And then came the Dutch, the English; the explorers, and they took over some of the rich countries that we controlled.
 
The colonies we had like Brazil, Mozambique, and Angola, survived for the last 300 to 200 years. But as the world developed, it was no longer allowed for countries to have colonies so we released our last colony in 1999, which was Macau in China. We had various dynasties of kings and queens and mixtures of royalty with other European countries.
 
We’re a country of explorers, very brave and courageous because if you could just imagine, 500 years ago, with no conditions, with little wooden boats discovering and crossing oceans and discovering countries, that can tell us a bit of the Portuguese culture. So yes, it’s a very brave culture, and a very brave country. We discovered half of the world and today we’re just a little civilized country of Europe.  

 

(Duke of Vise, Henry the Navigator of Portugal considered the patron of exploration, pictured.)

The worst reason for retiring overseas would be moving to another place and wanting it to be like home, because sometimes things do not work the same way as they do back home.

 

For example, the work ethic here in Panama is different from the work ethic back home, where I'm from, in the US. Here in Panama, if you want to have internet connection in your house, you would not get it by just asking for it. You have to make an extra effort. After I...

The worst reason for retiring overseas would be moving to another place and wanting it to be like home, because sometimes things do not work the same way as they do back home.

 

For example, the work ethic here in Panama is different from the work ethic back home, where I'm from, in the US. Here in Panama, if you want to have internet connection in your house, you would not get it by just asking for it. You have to make an extra effort. After I applied for an internet connection, I waited for a month, but they had not done anything. So when I got the opportunity, I parked my car in a way that one of their company vehicles could not escape and asked them to give me the internet connection I applied for a month ago. I am not a bad guy; I just need the internet. So if you decide to live overseas, you have to be ready to do things differently because sometimes if you do things the proper way, it just doesn’t work.